What is required for salvation?

The Pastor preached a great message and said this for the altar call: “If you’re here today and you would like to get saved, know more about this church, or need the baptism of the Holy Spirit or want to be healed, I want you to get out of your seat and come forward.”

Samatha had just turned fourteen and felt it was time she declared to the world that she was a Christian. It was time to answer the altar call. She nervously stood and approached the front of the church. The pastor had her recite the Sinner’s Prayer.

A Simple Sinner’s Prayer

Dear God in heaven, I come to you in the name of Jesus. I acknowledge to You that I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins and the life that I have lived; I need your forgiveness.

I believe that your only begotten Son Jesus Christ shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to turn from my sin.

You said in the bible that if we confess the Lord our God and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved.

Right now I confess Jesus as my Lord. With my heart, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved. Amen.

Millions, if not billions, of people have said some variation to this prayer to start their relationship with Jesus. They enter into what is known as once saved, always saved. They believe that once they say this prayer they receive their salvation and absolutely nothing can keep them out of heaven. I sure hope they are right. I confess that I am a sinner in need of forgiveness, acknowledge Jesus as my Lord and savior, and receive him into myself at every single Mass I attend. I don’t do this action just once but frequently throughout my entire life.

The Catholic understanding of salvation is very different and that I fear that the Sinner’s Prayer could be a tool used by the devil to lead people away from God. Yes, the devil can things that look good, holy, and reverent to draw people away from God. The problem with the sinner’s prayer is that appears to be biblical. Every lie contains truth to it and you can barely tell the really good lies apart from the truth. It is only after swallowing the worm do you find out that it has a hook in it.

The problem with the sinner’s prayer is that it leads one to believe that the only thing you have to do is to believe and accept Jesus as your Lord and savior and ask for forgiveness of your sins just one time. Belief and repentance are not the only requirements Jesus put on salvation. These are the only two conditions the sinner’s prayer mentions because to acknowledge the others one would have to become Catholic. This is why the Catholic Church teaches that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. That is a very difficult teaching even for many Catholics.

So, what are all of the requirements for salvation as given to us by Jesus himself?

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” All Christians universally agree that the first requirement of salvation is belief in Jesus and accepting him as your Lord and savior.

But Jesus goes on and says, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” He later teaches Nicodemus that one must be born again of water and the spirit to obtain eternal life. The Catholic Church teaches that baptism is a requirement of salvation. She also recognizes that there are circumstances where baptism is not possible. It is important to remember that we are bound by the sacraments Jesus gave us, but God is not. He can operate outside of his sacraments.

Jesus also said, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Greek verbs have a couple of different forms. One form of the verb means to do an action one time and stop. Another form of a verb means to continually do an action without ceasing. The verb tense used in this passage means to repent continuously of your sins, not just one time. For this Jesus gave the Church the Sacrament of Reconciliation where we can go repent of our sins to Jesus and receive absolution for those sins. Protestant churches do not believe this is necessary because Jesus’ sacrifice forgave all sins for all time. There is no need to repent of any sins after saying the sinner’s prayer.

Then comes the most important requirement for salvation of them all. In John 6:5 Jesus tells us that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood or we have no life within us. He tells us that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. Protestants believe Jesus was only speaking symbolically when he said this but the bible makes it abundantly clear that he was being very literal. How can this man give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink? Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist where, through the words of consecration said by someone holding the authority of Jesus, simple bread and wine become his body and blood.

Then Jesus gave us two commands to follow; love God above all things and love our neighbor with that same love. The best proof of love is obedience. If we love God the way we are called to, and we are obedient to his command, our love will manifest itself in service to our neighbor. We will pray for each other. We will care for each other. We will give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked. We will care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, and we will bury the dead. Salvation and works are as closely linked as pregnancy and child birth. One cannot exist without the other.

So, if we were to list out the requirements for salvation they would be:

1: Belief that Jesus is God, the Son of God, and accept him as Lord of our lives.

2: We must be baptized of water and the spirit (the Catholic sacraments of baptism and confirmation).

3: We must continually repent of our sins (the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation).

4: We must eat his flesh and drink his blood (the Catholic sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, only possible in our time through the sacrament of Holy Orders).

5: We must obey his commands to love God above all things, to love neighbor with that same love, and to prove our love through works of service to others. As Saint James says, “Faith without works is dead.”

The sinner’s prayer only covers number one. It does not cover any of the other requirements. There is another thing that makes the sinner’s prayer dangerous. I believe that it in itself is sinful (as the way it is stated in this blog anyway).

Sin is selfishly taking for yourself something that God does not freely give. God does give salvation freely but only if the above conditions are met. The sinner’s prayer ends with, “This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved.” One could make the claim that you are taking salvation for yourself by saying these words. If God does not grant you salvation when you do this, this action is sinful by definition.

Salvation is a gift given in love and because it is given in love there is always a choice. For a gift to be efficacious it has to be accepted and used and because it is a choice it can always be rejected at any time. The once saved, always saved crowd believes once they say this prayer they lose their free will to reject their salvation and they handcuff God so it doesn’t natter what they do with their lives God is required to let them into heaven when they die. Without free will love cannot exist and therefore gifts given in love cannot exist.

The devil has used this to turn millions away from God and claim them for his own.

There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church and the Sacraments entrusted to her to dispense divine life. The Catholic Church (including the Orthodox) is the only Church that has all seven sacraments Jesus entrusted to the Church to dispense divine life. All other churches have rejected these sacraments. Instead of receiving divine life through the tools he gave us they try to do so by making a one-time statement.

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